CRU – Then and Now

In respect to the alleged CRU confidentiality agreements (which look increasingly fictitious), Jean S made the interesting observation that CRU archived station in the 1980s and early 1990s at CDIAC (ndp020) and that the alleged CRU confidentiality agreements, for some reason, did not interfere with that data being archived.

Interestingly, I happen to have a station list and station data of 1994 vintage – a little later than NDP020 – and compared the present station list to the 1994 list, showing both deletions and additions. The number of stations increased from 3524 in the 1994 vintage to 4138 in the current vintage, which gives the impression of more activity and expanded coverage. But see the remarkable maps below. Most of the additions are in the US and a couple of other countries, while deletions are widespread.

I’ve spent a fair bit of time comparing the lists. There’s a lot of sloppiness in the present CRU list – country identifications have not been updated for example. The USSR lives on at CRU. Not infrequently the same station is picked up from two different sources, each duplicate having a separate CRU identification.

But I had another interest in the comparison. In refusing a prior FOI request, Jones said that the data was already publicly available at GHCN. This is not true for the entire data set, but many CRU stations can be conclusively identified with GHCN stations. If Jones is deriving his CRU version for (say) Bahrain from GHCN, he cannot also rely on a confidentiality agreement with Bahrain as an excuse for not providing data.

It should be possible to go through the countries with data additions since 1994 one-by-one, mark off the ones whose data additions come from GHCN and see what’s left. This sort of thing takes a bit of time, but the results are always interesting. Here’s a preliminary report on the provenance of the additions – the ones to which the alleged confidentiality might apply.

In the list below, there are 59 countries in which a station has been added since the 1994 “public” version.

The vast majority of the increase came from the US through the addition of much of the USHCN network (frequently duplicating prior sources). Some US stations could not be tied so far to USHCN or GHCN versions.

New non-GHCN versions were added for Canada and Australia, frequently as duplicates.

A number of European countries added non-GHCN versions: Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, one UK station (Wick), one Ireland station (Phoenix Park), one Italy station (Milano/Brera).

In the rest of the world, the additions were nearly all GHCN stations. Exceptions were Syria and Taiwan. Perhaps China, though I suspect that more identifications with GHCN versions are possible than I’ve accomplished so far. Given that the additional data for Spain comes from GHCN stations, the question of a confidentiality agreement with Spain becomes moot. Similarly for say South Africa or PNG. There are a few odds and ends that I couldn’t match right away – a few stations in Iran, one in Brazil, a couple in Bolivia. Argentina has a number of additions (nearly all airports).

It’s hard for me to imagine that CRU has entered into confidentiality agreements during the IPCC period with the countries adding non-GHCN versions to the version of the data to which no restrictions applied. Countries like the US, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway – a list that includes some self-righteous countries.

Once again, an unfunded person (Steve) can readily identify duplicates in just a few hours that CRU has not bothered to check. wow. The different coverage of the two maps is stunning. Siberia is missing from both maps, but there are stations there.

Steve: Craig – this is a plot of additions and deletions – not the continuing stations.

It’s hard for me to imagine that CRU has entered into confidentiality agreements during the IPCC period with the countries adding non-GHCN versions to the version of the data to which no restrictions applied. Countries like the US, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway – a list that includes some self-righteous countries.

harder yet to believe that they all had agreements that prevented release to “non academics”

With all of this talk of “secret” weather data I’m reminded of a story told by my high school Geography teacher roughly 20 years ago about Cambodia during the early days of the reign of the Khmer Rouge.
His story was that weather data was the only data they exchanged with the outside world, on the basis that it was so important that even they knew that it crossed national and ideological boundaries.
I’ve often wondered if this were true, but given the goings on at the CRU I can only conclude that it can’t have been.

After the above dates not only are the temperatures elevated in the case of GISS, but the downward slope of the graph decreases from 1992 and in the case of Hadley from 2002. (All 4 graphs of the slopes start themselves sloping downwards from 1992)

In the case of GISS the downward trend of the slope levels off from 2002 to 2005. Then it appears to precipitously play “catch-up”.

Is there anything significant about these graphs? Do they tell us anything?